Renewable Energy and Emerging Technology

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Testing New Technologies

Project Brightfield is a demonstration of the best next-generation solar technologies on the site of Chevron's decommissioned Bakersfield Refinery. Project Brightfield demonstrates cutting-edge solar energy technologies as well as the beneficial reuse of an industrial site. Brightfield provides approximately 740 kilowatts of peak renewable power capacity to the Kern River oil field and could be expanded in the future.

We believe alternative and renewable energy sources will play a role in meeting future energy demand. How large a role depends on many factors, including advances in technology, public acceptance and economic viability.

Renewable Energy

Chevron takes a pragmatic approach to renewable energy, pursuing and focusing on technologies that leverage our strengths. These include geothermal energy, advanced biofuels, wind power, solar energy and energy efficiency technologies. We conduct internal research and collaborate with governments, businesses and academia in researching and developing alternative and renewable energy sources. Through these partnerships, we share information and help to advance technology that can lead to more renewable energy for future generations.

Geothermal Energy

Chevron is one of the world's leading producers of geothermal energy, which is created by the heat of the earth and has almost no greenhouse gas emissions. In Indonesia and the Philippines, we supply enough geothermal energy to meet the needs of millions of people in these countries. The technologies and processes used in geothermal production have much in common with those for oil and gas. Chevron uses its experience in reservoir characterization and safe, efficient drilling to produce this renewable resource.

Chevron Geothermal Indonesia, Ltd., manages two large geothermal projects in Indonesia—Darajat and Salak, both on the island of Java. The output from our Darajat and Salak geothermal operations provides steam to two power plants with a total capacity of 647 megawatts. In the Philippines, the Philippines Geothermal Production Company (in which Chevron has a 40 percent interest) produces steam energy for the Tiwi and Mak-Ban geothermal power plants in southern Luzon, which have a combined capacity of 692 megawatts.

Chevron is also an investor in the Hudson Ranch Power I geothermal plant in the Salton Sea geothermal field of California. This 49-megawatt project is the first stand-alone geothermal power generation project to have been developed, permitted and built in the last 20 years in California's Salton Sea geothermal resource area.

Advanced Solar Technologies

Photovoltaic cells made from silicon alloys can convert sunlight into other forms of energy, such as heat and electricity. Steam generators using thermal collectors to heat water sometimes convert even larger amounts of solar energy into electricity. Solar power can help alleviate capacity problems on local utility grids and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the use of electricity from power plants that use fossil fuels.

Chevron's photovoltaic projects at Questa, New Mexico, and in the San Joaquin Valley, California, continue to test and evaluate solar technologies. The installation at Questa, for example, uses lenses to focus sunlight onto three-layer solar cells. Since its inception in April 2011, Questa had produced 5.4 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy by the end of 2014.

Project Brightfield, a demonstration of next-generation solar energy technologies in Bakersfield, California, is evaluating seven emerging photovoltaic technologies to help determine the potential application of renewable power at other company-owned facilities. The project currently operates on the site of a former Chevron refinery.

Chevron has also invested in five joint-venture photovoltaic solar facilities in California, Arizona and Texas, which generate a combined 73 megawatts of renewable energy.

Wind Power

Our Casper Wind Farm, commissioned in 2009, has turned a former refinery site near Casper, Wyoming, into an 11-turbine wind power facility. It supplies approximately 16.5 megawatts of electricity to the local power grid, enough to power approximately 4,400 homes.

Biofuels

Biofuels are one of Chevron's renewable energy focus areas. We believe that biofuels that complement conventional transportation fuels will play an increasing role in meeting the world's growing energy needs.

We are active in conventional as well as cellulosic and other advanced biofuels. Almost all of the gasoline Chevron sells in the United States contains ethanol, a conventional biofuel derived from edible sugars and starches. We also conduct research on cellulosic and other advanced biofuels that limit our choice of raw materials to those that do not materially affect food or feed supplies.